


Interstices

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Ultraviolet (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-02-02
Updated: 2006-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1641098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for ladymoonray</p>
    </blockquote>





	Interstices

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ladymoonray

 

 

 

 

"Could you have a look at this?"

"I'm not a cut-price GP, you know." Angie put down the slide she was carrying.

Michael hopped up on the examining table. "Yeah, I can see my explanation really flying at the local doctor's. `The spot where the vampire bit me has been hurting a lot: do you have a cream for that?'"

"Your bite is hurting?" More concerned, Angie picked up a UV scope. "It should be completely sterilized."

"Now I have your interest. Yeah, for the last couple of weeks."

"Why didn't you come to me earlier? " Mike gave her a look. "Right, you thought it would just go away." She unbuttoned his shirt's top so she could pull his collar to one side and expose the scar. Mike bore it patiently. She focused the UV scope.

"I figured it was my turn for the summer cold," Mike said. "Remember, you said when the immune system goes down, the bites can start bleeding again? Not that this one's bleeding, it just itches. What?"

Angie turned the UV light on the scope off and said, very gently, "You're going to have to come with me."

*

"Fresh? How can it..."

"... same dimensions, which argues it's the..."

".. rather ingenuous to come to you asking about it..."

".... Didn't know? Bit of an oversight..."

*

"Calm down, Mike."

This made him feel even less like calming down. "You're saying one of those things bit me- again- and I don't remember it?"

"Most people don't remember it, Michael." Pearse looked properly calm, properly sympathetic. He had a gun trained on Michael under the desk. Both of them knew it.

"Bullshit! I remember the first bite just fine. There's no reason I'd go blocking another one out, is there?"

"Vaughan will show you to a room. We just want to conduct a few tests, make sure you haven't been compromised."

Vaughan took Mike's arm and pulled him into the hallway.

"Look mate, I..."

"What did they promise you?"

"Nothing. I didn't-"

"Is that why you've been off lately? Did you let that one last week escape?"

"No!" Mike remembered the burning pain that had cramped his insides. He'd begged off the chase and, without him there to help ride herd, the suspect'd escaped. Afterwards he'd taken a sick day, stayed at home and tried to sleep away the exhaustion that had been dogging him.

"I should've known when you stole the remains..."

"I had to take somebody's," Mike said. "They wouldn't've shown us how they regenerate otherwise."

"And you just had to pick your best mate."

"Jack's the only one I knew who wasn't that much of a danger."

"They're all dangerous. One becomes two becomes a thousand, all pulling strings behind the scene." He shook his head. "I trusted you."

"Yeah." Mike nodded his head. "That's where we're different. Because I haven't trusted anyone since this whole thing started."

*

"Let me out of here!" He paced.

"I haven't done anything."

"Look, you know me," he said to the mirror. Talking to the people he suspected were there. "You know I haven't done anything."

*

"You've got a visitor."

Angie looked coolly impressed by something. Pearse knew it took a lot to ruffle her.

"What a surprise," he said, coming to the door.

Frances pushed past Angie, stood inside the office holding out her hand. "Mr. Harman. I understand you're holding my ex prisoner."

"And what would give you that impression?"

"I don't feel like bandying words. Either answer the question or I'll take action."

"I wasn't bandying words," Pearse said, gesturing her to come inside and sit down. He sat at his desk and folded his hands in front of him. "I understood that you had broken off relations with Michael."

"Yes. Well. Mike's never been very good at ending things. I was expecting him to break after a couple of weeks. When he didn't- well, barring a major personality transplant, I was sure something had happened to him, so I set my moles to work. You'll excuse me not going into greater detail."

"Interesting choice of metaphor. Moles. Living in darkness, working in secret," Pearse said. Inviting comment.

"Depends on your point of view, I suppose," Frances said, not giving an inch. "Now, this is the way I see it from my point of view. You can let me take Mike home right now, and I won't release the cache of documents I've compiled about your agency. Or you can try to arrest, intimidate or coerce me, and after a certain time limit- which I also won't mention- the documents will g out anyway. Or you can do something really stupid like deny you have Mike at all and really piss me off. And you don't want to see what I'll do then."

"Michael has been attacked by someone," Pearse said, carefully picking his way through what he could and couldn't say. "We're worried that this person might try to hurt him again, and that through no fault of his own, Michael might not be able to stop him. It really is safer for him to stay here."

"What a pity it's so much safer for you to let him go," Frances said.

*

"Let me out!" Mike screamed. He threw his chair at the mirror. It bounced off, a little bent. The UV lighting in the room lent everything a blue aspect. Three days of constant supervision had left him edgy and tired. The food they'd brought him a few hours ago lay on the table. He'd managed to nibble around the edges of a bun before his nervousness had gotten the better of him.

He couldn't tell if anyone was watching him. That was probably the worst part, because it made him assume he was being watched all the time.

A wave of white washed over his vision. As it receded, it took his strength with it, leaving him feeling stretched and weak. He felt his knees collapsing and the shock of hitting the floor. For a few moments he lay there, absorbing the pain, before the merciful switch snapped in his head.

*

"...addicted?"

"...seen someone who's been fed on so much..."

"...overlapping bites make it very hard to determine..."

"... don't let him go now he'll probably die. At least this way we can try to catch whoever did this to him. If we can get a hold of his attacker, we might be able to make an antivenin..."

"For a moment there I thought you were human, Angie."

"Don't let it happen again."

*

The door opening, a corridor, and Frances supporting him, saying something he couldn't catch. The edges of his vision were cloudy and he felt as if he were underground. She drove him home. The milk in the fridge was off and his laundry basket was full. I should do that, he thought, the same thing he'd thought- two?- weeks ago.

Frances kept fussing around him until he was concentratedly rude and then she left.

*

"Anything?"

"There's a dumb question."

"Hold on- movement at the side."

"Lucky to see it," someone muttered. Without any surveillance technology, stakeouts were often ten hours of boredom.

The figure Vaughan'd spotted slipped around the side of the apartment building and maneuvered Michael's window up effortlessly, familiarly.

"Move in?"

"No. Wait for it." Vaughan.

"But-"

"Wait for it."

*

Someone had gotten in and rubbed his sheets with sand: they stuck to him. Sleep, like a hovering angel, prodded at his consciousness but never landed. He needed- something. Someone-

\- was in the room. Bending over him. He could make out luminous eyes. "Sssh," she whispered. With a shock he recognized the Cartwright girl. He and Vaughan had worked her case a month ago, his first case after Jack's getting out. Vaughan had been wary and distrustful. Her boyfriend had been killed in an industrial fire but hadn't seen that as any reason to break off the relationship. She'd been so close to going with them. All the logic in the world couldn't make up for the temptation. He'd thought she was convinced- argued with her for a whole night, taken a good bashing from the boyfriend when he'd come to pick her up. Thought job well done. It'd all been self-deception. She'd skipped out a week after they'd taken the surveillance down a notch.

"I had to show you," she said. "It's not so bad, really. And they have such plans for you, Detective."

He scrabbled at his bedside table, but of course they'd impounded his gun and hadn't given it back. She bent down and reached for his wrist, turning it upwards, and she smiled.

The bullets hit her from the side. "Mike! You all right?" Vaughan and a SWAT team were suddenly everywhere. She was hurt, hissing, and they moved in with a net to capture her. She sprang on one of the SWAT team and the others opened fire. The explosion she made scorched his carpet. The SWAT team's flashlights set off strobe patterns in his brain. "We got her, Mike."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah." Looking at the pile of ash. Feeling empty.

*

"... a little restraint. I asked for a viable research specimen."

"Easier to transport this way. You can just pour a little on, right?" Tipping his wrist.

"Think we'd get permission for that, even if we had Code V blood lying around?"

"Don't see what you're complaining about. Got the job done."

"I just like to confirm things."

"The bite she was about to take out of Mike confirmed things just fine for me. How's he doing?"

"He's tracking better. I think he's responding, but like any addiction he has to go through withdrawal."

"The guarddog?"

"Seems to recognize we're doing our best for him. We're allowing her visits."

"Wonder why she held out turning him so long?"

"Maybe they wanted him to be a double-agent. Luckily we caught it in time. I'll put him on bedrest for a week and then he can be back at work."

*

Tests, tests, a truly grueling debriefing session, more bad cafeteria food than was healthy. And he was home again, bedroom carpet newly stripped out. The burn mark had reached the wood, and wouldn't sand away. Mike tried to assimilate everything that had happened. His neck still itched.

Movement in the corner of the room and Jack was there, unflustered and suave. "Mike," he said. Mike just stared. "Put you through the wringer, huh? I'll tell you, this job is killing you," Jack said, and chuckle-smirked.

The gun was carefully on the bedside table this time, but as he dove for it Jack dove for him. "What are you here for?" Mike said. The gun was three feet away. Jack was much closer. "What I always come for," Jack said. He bent his head. Mike felt the kiss through his spine, shaking memories into place. The past few weeks. Jack's visits. The sweet knife that slid through his stomach as Jack bit into him slowly, savouring. His pupils dilated. He kissed Jack back.

"Better do it somewhere they won't look," Jack said, unbuttoning Mike's shirt. "Can't waste such a cute scapegoat. Not that you'll be calling attention to yourself anymore, will you?"

"No," Mike gasped, straining up towards Jack.

"Good." Jack captured Mike's gaze. "You're not worried about the marks. You don't want to talk about it at work."

"I don't..." Mike said. He pulled himself up for another kiss.

Jack pushed him down again. They were both panting. "Come on, Mike," he said. "This is what friends are for."

Mike called Jack's name as the teeth went into his neck. "See you soon, buddy," Jack said.

Twenty minutes later, Mike had forgotten the whole thing.

 


End file.
